News about healthcare and medicine in China | An independent site by Michael Woodhead

Monday, 16 December 2013

Baby abducted from Guangdong maternity hospital

The lucrative black market for babies in China is growing by the day. Liu and her husband Duan, both aged 40, have been working in Dongguan City in Guangdong Province. In October, Liu came back to her hometown in Tongcheng County to prepare for her baby’s birth. On the night of Nov. 1, she went into labor and her family took her to Tongcheng People’s Hospital, where she was directly checked into the delivery room. She gave birth to a baby boy the following morning by caesarean section. Weighing 8.4 lbs, the baby was well and healthy. The good news excited the entire family, and kept Duan awake as he traveled all night from Dongwan to the hospital. He arrived at 4 a.m. and was extremely happy to see his son. No one expected the tragedy that was about to happen to this family. On Nov. 7, Duan and his mother went back to their hometown to prepare for the baby’s full month birthday, and Hu, Duan’s sister-in-law, stayed to take care of Liu, who was still recovering from the cesarean. On his way home, Duan received a heartbreaking phone call from his wife: “Someone’s taken our son! Come back immediately.” Liu said that Hu escorted her to a toilet outside her ward, and when they came back a few minutes later, the baby was missing. Hu immediately ran downstairs searching for the baby and called the police. A middle-aged woman with a ponytail was seen in the surveillance footage playing with her cellphone just outside the delivery room at around 3:10 p.m., and disappeared soon afterwards. She was seen running out of the hospital building holding a baby at 3:21:11 p.m., and then again in the hallway outside the hospital at 3:21:40 p.m. The Duan couple did not recognize the woman. Source: ChinaGaze